This is an initial post calling all who think they’d like to take part in a Forza Motorsport 3 championship alongside other members of the F1Fanatic community.

All are welcome providing they own or have access to an Xbox 360, a copy of Forza Motorsport 3, and a decent internet connection (We don’t want you lagging out, disappearing before our eyes, and then re-appearing sideways and upside-down in front of everyone, taking out 5 others in the process).

You must also be a fair driver. No, these aren’t single seaters, so they’re not going to take off or fall apart at the slightest contact, and Forza provides plenty of room for a little bump’n’grind and paint swapping, but the last thing we want is people who can’t drive or wish to deliberately cause grief for other drivers by taking everyone out.

The cars, venues, dates, and rules are far from set in concrete, and can be somewhat shaped by those who wish to enter, but I have a couple of ideas for what form they will take.

Cars:

Forza has a wide range of cars, excluding single seaters. I, personally, have found that the closest and funnest racing happens in cars that aren’t armed to the teeth with turbochargers and aerofoils, but realise that some people wishing to enter may still want a 220mph drag-fest down the Mulsanne Straight.

So I propose racing in a variety of cars from F class to A Class, with two races in each class. One race where you can bring along cars from your own garage, upgraded and tuned to the top of said class, and a second race in a pre-determined car within said class, but left untuned and as the maker intended. This will provide 12 races (A, B, C, D, E, F = 6 x2 = 12)

Custom liveries will be actively encouraged, especially if they are race replicas or motorsport-inspired originals. I guess you can bring along an big-boobed anime girl clad Formula D car if you wish…

Points:

Points will be given as per the classic 1990’s F1 scoring system: 10 – 6 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1. If you finish 7th or 8th… try harder next time.

Obviously, if there are more than 8 people wishing to enter, then we’ll have to split everyone up into heats, or something. But we’ll cross that bridge if and/or when.

Venues:

Tracks will be chosen to suit the cars, so we’re not gonna have a 10 lap race round the Nordschleife in 110hp Class F cars, and neither will we cram 8 Dodge Vipers into that tarmac that denotes the Iberian mini circuit (because they wouldn’t even fit anyway), but the other way round would probably be good. Class F races at tracks like Tsucuba and Silverstone National, Class C’s round circuits such as the Bugatti Le Mans, and Class A cars taking on Road America et al.

R-Class Races:

If all this goes well, we could have a few ‘for-fun’ non-championship races in R Class cars, and maybe even go on to have an LMP and/or GT Championship if people feel up for it, but for now, lets have ourselves some Touring/Sports car fun.

Rules:

To be decided. The way forza works online means it would be tricky to have qualifying (I think, I’ll check that later) to denote start position. Drivers can use whatever controls they want (Controller, Wheel & Pedals, etc) and any driving assists they wish, because unlike F12010, the driving assists in Forza slow you down. Those who are confident enough are free to race with them all turned off.

So, who’s up for it?

Register your interest by posting your gamertag here, along with your favourite cars and tacks, so we can begin to build a list that might be used for the stock races and race venues.

Oh, also say when you’re most likely to be free to race, and any ideas for the championship you may have.

The only thing I would say, is with the tuning, I feel this makes it a little unfair, as people who are better at tuning will have the better cars. I dont mind if everyone wants to go with that, but that’s just my view.

The only thing I would say, is with the tuning, I feel this makes it a little unfair, as people who are better at tuning will have the better cars. I dont mind if everyone wants to go with that, but that’s just my view.

Don’t worry, the only tuning I ever do is tyre pressure and aero (maybe gear ratios, but other than that, I’m clueless), and a lot of the lower class cars don’t have enough high-grade upgrades to even enable a lot of the tuning options.

The upgrading however, as I spoke of in the other thread, is very simple, can be tailored to your own driving style (power vs control vs mixture of the two). If you really don’t feel confident in upgrading the car yourself (go on, give it a go… it’s fun!) then you can have the game do it for you (“auto-upgrade”, just choose the class you want to upgrade to and the game will get as close as it can) or buy an upgrade/tune straight off the game’s storefront.

Free: Almost every evening except Friday and alternate weekends (see the gf once every 2 weekends)

Regarding smifayes point earlier – As ajokay says there are two types of tuning – car upgrades and set up tuning. I only know how to use the car upgrades and occasionally changing wing levels if I have a spoiler. Car tuning actually makes little difference – unless you are uber good. If you are concerned though you can always buy a tune setup from the marketplace (usually quite cheaply) and use that.

@ajokay i’d quite like to see a variety of races both stock and class based – and maybe a fastest lap race too? I’d also like a rear wheel drive only race as I think they are the least used.

I’d be up for an R-type race too, but maybe as a one off (or perhaps only using non-R class cars and only accepted upgraded ones). Lots of variables. I would suggest though that whatever we decide, we should declare the car we wish to use in the event before the race maybe? Just brainstorming!

I stuck Forza on the other day for the first time in about 12 months and had totally forgotten how sublime it looks.

I have to admit, I never really played Forza online – it felt like a competition between mechanics rather than racing drivers. So if we keep the tuning to a minimum, it’d be great to finally be able to get some fun out of it. I’m a pretty average racer, but safe and fair. Should be able to make most races, so why not, count me in!

Gamertag is Bookoi

Also up for Dirt 2, Grid, Shift etc and a game called F1 2010 – you might have heard of it :P

Me and ajokay had a go on Forza 3 last night to see what kind of classes work best. I think we pretty much tried every class of car at least once.

The most competitive racing was definitely in the mid to lower class races. The best races were also around the shorter national type circuits. We only did 5 laps, but I think this could be increased if possible.

I’ve only recently got into Forza 3 because I’ve not played it very much, but last night definitely got me thinking it could be a lot of fun.

I’ve been making my way getting a few cars from each class to the top of the class, and I find this really interesting. Pete, are you talking about upgrades or tuning, as I was confused about this to start with. Because I think noone is really going to be doing much tuning, and maybe it could be banned if that is possible.

I think I’ve got most classes covered now, and started getting some liveries sorted. What is the consensus on this?

I’m personally awful at creating them, and one of the cars I’ll be racing in definitely showcases my (lack of) talent. I did do it deliberately bad though!

It would be great if we could have colours we could all stick to, but I’ve already gone and got a load of different styles for each car. I’ve got a Lotus Exige in Senna’s Lotus 86 colours, and I’ve got a Fiat 500 in Coca-Cola branding for example.

It’s a shame most of them are locked, because otherwise we could have numbers.

Tuning could be banned, but I personally forget what cars I have tuned, and tuning, although allowing you to get ‘top-ten-in-the-world’ laptimes, won’t make too much of a difference for sunday drivers like ourselves. But once again, I’ll say ‘Upgrading’ and ‘Tuning’ are very different. Upgrading is easy to get the hang of, and lets your tailor the car to your driving style, but Tuning is a dark art that even a Forza-ing friend of mine who’s studying Automotive & Race Engineering at Uni has only scratched the surface of…

Tuning is only possibly if you have upgrade to the high-end parts to, like race-grade gearboxes, brakes, suspension, etc. These parts cost a lot and put the car’s Class right up, and as a result, a lot of the lower class cars won’t have them, so they won’t be tunable anyway. They generally start appearing once you upgrade a car to a C or above, and even the a C class car might only have one or two tuneable parts.

That Clio I sent you yesterday smifaye, I upgraded it to Renault Clio Cup spec, so it has racing brakes, gearbox, suspension, aero and slicks, so it’s fully tuneable. I’ve never tuned it, and you can see how good it is with out tuning. It’s the upgrading that makes it quick and nimble. Tuning will be per track and per driver to eek out those extra few tenths to get an ego-boosting laptime.

As for liveries… here’s a collection of mine from the Forza Motorsport 3 official Forum:

If we want to go crazy we could enter cars in custom liveries designed around our own teams. I make my liveries purple and white, as those are the colours of ‘ajokay Motorsport’, my made-up racing team. I could make a number box to distribute to everyone to put on the doors and bonnet too, with the F1F logo on, or something. And if we’re each going to race with out orn number, I’m bagging 23 as mine.

sw6569 said:

i’d quite like to see a variety of races both stock and class based… I’d also like a rear wheel drive only race…

I’d be up for an R-type race too… Lots of variables.

Maybe this is something we could work into it. The low Class races will generally be front wheel drive because of the nature of those cars anyway. Maybe we could restrict the A Class race to Rear Wheel Drive, or even add an S Class race using only Mid-engined, real wheel drive cars. I enjoy driving all sorts, although my least used are probably 4WD cars, as they’re very understeery.

Phew… another long post. I could talk about Forza 3 all day, and probably will.

@smifaye tbh honest I love pick-up-and-play type games with stock cars eg. Dirt, where the focus is on driving and its equal for all BUT as you say upgrading is easy and I’m happy to go with the flow :)

I’m looking forward to the painting and I like the idea of drivers sticking to the same colours/sponsors etc. You can still mix up your liveries using the same colours ;) The stock number box sounds great too if you’d like to throw it together, ajokay. My racing number has always been 71.

I think with custom liveries we’ll end up with some great photos from the races.

If you have any questions about the organisation and game functionality, I recommend contacting the guys at http://www.apexracingleague.com – they used Forza 3 for their leagues for a long time – check out some of their race highlight videos!